Introduction, my linux experience review, and back to Win7

[Frank427]

Greetings,
I would like to introduce myself to this community because I have been able to learn much about linux and appreciate all the help this community provides.

At the same time, I would like to give you my current review and perspective of the linux experience to an ex windows and mac OS user. I consider myself more technologically savvy than the average computer user and my review will be as unbiased as possible. The purpose for this review is to allow the linux community to gain the unbiased perspective of an outside user and to move linux products in a direction where they can make open source software the “norm”.

I tested (4) distributions which seemed to be the best for an ex windows candidate; Ubuntu Linux, Mint Linux, Fedora, and PC Linux. After messing around with all of these for a minimum of a few days, I was most comfortable and pleased with the experience on Ubuntu Linux with the Unity interface and the Fedora experience with Gnome 3. Both of these provided a fresh and pleasurable experience that made me feel like I had a polished, quality product that I could have paid for.

Unfortunately, I had many issues with Fedora and Gnome 3. I re-installed multiple times but I kept getting weird issues, crashing, and had difficulty installing certain items. This left me a little upset because I actually liked Gnome 3 the best.

The rest of my review will follow my Ubuntu experience which was the overall best, in my opinion, for someone switching over. I am going to rate these items from 1 to 5, 5 indicating my expectation of a typical windows user willing to switch over. I understand some of my critiques do not apply or are addressed in other distributions, but personally I feel Ubuntu is closest to bringing home the bacon.

Installation:
The installation of Ubuntu was easy and fast. I think the linux community has reached a point where a user can comfortably install linux. Simply inserting the disk and answering typical questions allowed the installation to proceed. None of the questions were very advanced or intimidating. Despite some rumors, no terminal command lines were ever needed.

Rating: 5/5

Setting up and customization of the desktop:
After some tweaking the desktop looked very sexy. The unity interface is professional looking and very polished. The window buttons are by default located in the top left, I had a lot of difficulty figuring out how to move them to the right like a typical windows window. The window menus being integrated with the top bar is a nice feature, but it leads to a lot of confusion when many windows are open and some are full screen. Overall, the interface and customization is there, but is confusing to a new user or less technical person. Some of these features, like the top bar integration, need to be removed on initial startup or clearly explained in a “Welcom to Unity” introduction demo (that can be skipped if wanted).

Rating: 3/5

Multiple language support:
Another big issue for me is being able to type in English and Chinese using pinyin input. This is not automatically set up in windows so users should expect some level of setup required. Installing ibus (after I found it) was straight forward and similar to a windows experience. The main problem I had with ibus was that unlike windows, the input seems to be application driven. For example, when I have Chinese enabled and I am on the desktop, it goes back to English until I am in an input box. I felt like it was very clunky and just a “patch” that turned on when I could input something. In windows, once the alternate language is selected it becomes native to the entire machine and can be tuned for each application. I felt it was a lot more work to maintain 2 languages in Unity than windows.

Installation of dual language support: 5/5
Usage of dual language support: 2/5

Online Video experience:
Youtube videos worked right out of the box (unlike other distros) which was a very pleasant experience. Although videos seemed to work, flickering and buttons would randomly disappear in the flash application (such as the full screen or mute buttons). Overall I felt like it worked but was buggy and not very enjoyable. I had to really “fight” to get through videos once the full screen or mute button started to flicker. This might have been a computer issue on my end, but I did my darndest to find it and could not. The average user would not have that type of patience.

Experience: 2/5

Printing:
My HP printer worked like a charm. No issues, great printing, similar to windows. Overall a fine experience for my printer (I can’t test every printer in the world, sorry).

Experience: 5/5

Office applications:
LibreOffice is a great suit of applications. I was very impressed. While not quite at the MS Office level, I think most people would be comfortable with these programs. The only annoying thing is the file format issue. I think upon startup the user should be asked if they prefer using the open file type or MS office file type. This way, a user who has an environment where all they do is work on existing MS documents can make those the standard default when saving. This would take out the slight ‘annoyance factor’

Experience: 4/5

MATLab installation:
I tried to install the linux version of MATLab and failed miserably. I think this was a case of user error, but again, the annoyance factor really killed me. I don’t want to think extra hard or do extra work to get something that works with a click in windows.

Overall, I wanted to switch permanently to Fedora Gnome 3 but just couldn’t get it working. I enjoyed my Ubuntu Unity experience but I am switching back to windows 7 for now. The reason is simply that small “annoyance factor”. As a typical user does not want to take those small things into account, like remembering to save a .doc every time or deal with the fine tuning to remove the flickering in a youtube video.

I intentionally did not point out the positivies simply because you all already know them. GIMP and LibreOffice are great for any small business. The Ubuntu software center has a lot of great applications which I enjoyed trying. I really want Unity, Gnome 3 and others to succeed because I really think they are great. The linux community just needs to think a little less like an engineer (I am an engineer myself). Just because it works, and CAN work, doesn’t make it good enough. The small things that make linux “annoying” for most people and “fun” for some is what needs to be addressed.

I will continue to be active and learning more about linux. I really can’t wait until I get Gnome 3 working properly. But for now, I need to get back to windows for my daily life.

Frank

[jayd512]

Hi, Frank! Welcome to LinuxForums!

Nice to see an avid Windows user try to give an objective look at the Linux world. And the fact that you tried several flavors before deciding that Windows better suits your needs... kudos!

Really, only 2 things that I would point out that might have helped your experience, and you may have already came across them on your own.

First, just remember that Unity and Gnome 3 are still fairly new, and still need a little polishing up from the dev teams. So a few glitches are to be expected. The good news is that they are still under constant development, and should soon be running as smoothly as any other desktop environments.

Another issue that you mentioned was flickering of videos. This might be something as simple as making sure you have the correct video drivers installed.

Still, all in all, a fair review.

I will continue to be active and learning more about Linux.

Good to hear. Just keep trying it out, and keep your mind open.

[MASONTX]

Good review. You might try Ultimate, a beefed up ubuntu, or Ubuntu 10.04 with the old gnome desktop. If you want to keep playing with different distor's, some of which are made specifically to look and act like windows, go to distrowatch.com and browse the 600+ distro's they have on file. Each one has a brief write up and the data base is searchable by different criteria to help you narrow down your search. Keep trying, and have fun with it. You might also want to dual boot so that you can use windows when you need to, and linux when you want to explore.